Annual Producer Price Inflation (PPI) for the month of April was 7.1 per cent, showing no change over the 7.1 per cent recorded in March this year.

The month-on-month change in the producer price index between March and April 2019 was 0.9 per cent.

The PPI measures the average change over time in the prices received by domestic producers for the production of their goods and services.

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, said producer inflation in the mining and quarrying sub-sector decreased by 3.6 percentage points over the March 2019 rate of 15.9 per cent to record 12.3 per cent in April 2019.

“The producer inflation for manufacturing which constitutes more than two-thirds of total industry increased by 0.7 percentage points to record 7.5 per cent,” he said.

He also explained that in the manufacturing sector, during the month of April 2019, three out of the 16 major groups in the sector recorded inflation rates higher than the sector average of 6.1 per cent.

“The manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products recorded the highest inflation rate of 17.2 per cent, while tanning and dressing of leather and manufacture of paper and paper products recorded inflation of 0.0 per cent,” he said.

The utilities sub-sector recorded inflation rate of 1.1 per cent, indicating an increase of 0.3 percentage point than the rate recorded in March 2019.

Trends

Giving highlights of the trend in Producer Price Inflation rate, Prof. Annim said in April 2018, the rate for all industry was 6.4 per cent.

Subsequently, it increased continuously to record 8.2 per cent in July 2018, but declined to 5.8 per cent in September 2018.

He added that in October 2018, the rate increased to 7.2 per cent but declined continuously to record 3.4 per cent in January 2019.“Since then the rate resumed the upward trend to record 7.1 per cent in April 2019,” he said.

Petroleum sector

The producer inflation rate in the petroleum sub-sector was 22.7 per cent in April 2018. Afterwards, it increased to 44.2 per cent in June 2018, but decreased to 31.1 per cent in September 2018.

However, it increased again to 36.1 per cent in October 2018 but resumed the downward trend to record 3.8 per cent in January 2019 and increased consistently to record 17.2 per cent in April 2019.